The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before … Chapter 14
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 14: After the Dreaming, a Prayer
Word Count: 1,020 words
Rating: T (PG-13)
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my craziness in this nBSG/Voyager crossover story. Battlestar Galactica belongs to Glen A. Larson, Ron D. Moore, David Eick, the Sci-Fi Channel, various and sundry companies and whoever owns them. Star Trek: Voyager belongs to Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor, Paramount Studios, UPN, Viacom and whoever else owns pieces of the Star Trek franchise.
Spoilers: For nBSG - to Crossroads Part 2; for ST:V - to Endgame. Everything beyond is definitely alternate universe and a fairly cracked one at that!
Summary: The survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol and the crew of the intrepid starship Voyager must find a way to break the cycle …
The Last Iteration: All This Has Happened Before …
Chapter 14: After the Dreaming, a Prayer
Laura Roslin sat near the windows of Galactica’s observation deck, staring out at the panoramic view of the fleet and the stars beyond. The cavernous room was deserted and with her guards outside, she would have it all to herself until she chose to leave. Selfish, she knew, but right now she needed to be selfish … to take time for herself.
Her stomach roiled, but since she’d already brought up everything a little while ago after her first diloxin treatment, it settled back into an uneasy truce with her body. Nevertheless, she uncapped the small bottle of water Tory had insisted she carry with her and took a sip.
As soon as was humanly possible, she’d escaped Cottle’s life station, the horror that was the treatment for her cancer and the horror that was her own mind. Diloxin. Chamalla. Prophecy. Whatever was responsible, her visions were more coherent now, almost beautiful, but for the foetid, Stygian undercurrent-that promised more death and more destruction-coursing through them like an ominous score from one of those operas she’d loved to attend back on Caprica.
And that she now shared her visions with the two Cylon women on the ship scared the living frak out of her.
Laura turned her mind from that uncomfortable fact; there were a lot more uncomfortable facts for her to deal with without dwelling on her connection to the Cylons. It was a connection she neither wanted nor welcomed, but no longer had the strength to deny.
The longer she sat, the more she felt the anti-nausea medication take effect. She knew that she should have gone straight to Bill’s quarters, but although it was one of the few places she could be herself … that she could feel at home, it was still his home, and while there, in a lot of ways, she couldn’t help but be the Laura he wanted.
And right now she desperately needed a few moments to herself … to be the woman she was within the confines of her own skin, without being defined by the Presidency, the People, the burdens of Prophecy, or even Admiral William Adama. She’d always known that Bill didn’t see the real Laura Roslin, even after everything she’d done … even though it was obvious his son now saw her all too clearly, as evidenced by his defence of Baltar. Lee saw the ugly side of her that she was sure everyone else but his father saw.
Somehow, in the pools of Bill Adama’s blue eyes, she found herself transmuted to something far nobler than what she truly was, and right now, she didn’t know if that was good or not. She only knew that she would use it-use him if it meant keeping their people safe.
She drew her knees closer to her chest and felt a lone tear course down her cheek. Bereft of her book of Scripture or beads or even a candle to guide her, the simple prayer rose from deep within her and she couldn’t deny it voice.
“I don’t want to use him,” she whispered. “All my life I’ve always been afraid of asking for too much, so I asked for nothing and settled for whatever came my way … told myself I was content. Is it too much to ask for now? Is it too late, my Lords?”
She gazed out again at the elegant constellation, the pattern etched into the black, and the torrent of stars spilling from its side as the vast galaxy stretched out before her.
“I have no worthy sacrifice to give, but on the blood of this dying swan, keep him safe for me.”
#
Admiral William Adama walked the corridors of Galactica, his feet carrying him almost of their own volition to the CIC, the nerve centre of his ship. His mind should have been on the final jump to the Ionian Nebula, but instead all he could think about was Laura’s face when the “not guilty” verdict had been read, freeing the man who had signed her death warrant.
Now Bill wondered what else lay behind the haunted look of absolute devastation he’d seen in her eyes just for a moment before she schooled it behind her consummate politician’s mask. Suddenly, it hit him; he really didn’t know much about what had happened to her on New Caprica beyond the fact that she’d been a leader in the underground resistance and that she’d been incarcerated by the Cylons three or four times-the last time being when they’d shipped her off to shot in the dirt like an animal in front of a firing squad of merciless Cylon centurions. And it had been Baltar’s signature scrawled on the execution order containing over two hundred names. She’d survived thanks to Saul Tigh and Galen Tyrol’s guerrilla fighters, but although she refused to speak about New Caprica, he knew that her experiences there had left an indelible mark on her soul.
Bill’s gut lurched. Now he had to face her with the knowledge that he’d let that traitorous piece of human garbage go, all in the name of some frakking ideal of justice he wasn’t sure should still be applicable.
The tribunal had been deadlocked and his had been the deciding vote. And if he was honest with himself, it had come down to Lee’s face, his passionate words that reminded Bill so much of his own father-although they’d never really got along-and to Laura’s blind anger and hatred for Baltar.
“There is a difference between being proven innocent and being declared not guilty,” he remembered his father saying so many years ago.
But does it really matter anymore? Bill wondered. Did people even make that distinction anymore? Would Laura ever see it as anything other than a betrayal of all the pain she’d suffered-all the pain the people had suffered?
Stepping into CIC, he didn’t think so. As he met Tigh’s single unflinching eye, he knew deep in his gut that it could never be anything but a betrayal of everyone who’d died on New Caprica. And of those who had survived.
#
To Chapter 15